The Massachusetts Senior Circuit Breaker Credit is a refundable state income tax credit that reimburses residents age 65 and older when their property taxes or rent take too large a bite out of their income. For tax year 2025, filed in 2026, it can be worth up to $2,820. Because the credit is refundable, you receive the full amount even if you owe little or no Massachusetts income tax, with any excess coming back as a refund. Both homeowners and renters can claim it.
Who Qualifies
You must be at least 65 by December 31 of the tax year. On a joint return, only one spouse needs to meet the age requirement. You also must have been a Massachusetts resident for the entire year, and the property you’re claiming must be your principal residence. Vacation homes and investment properties don’t count.
Renters are eligible alongside homeowners, but with a catch. If you receive a federal or state rent subsidy, including a Section 8 voucher, you don’t qualify. Neither do tenants of tax-exempt landlords. The credit is aimed at people paying the full weight of market-rate housing costs.
Income and Property Value Limits
For tax year 2025, your total income cannot exceed:
- $75,000 if single
- $94,000 if head of household
- $112,000 if married filing jointly
These thresholds come from the Department of Revenue’s annual Technical Information Release, which applies cost-of-living adjustments to the statutory base amounts.
“Total income” for this credit is broader than the income figure you’d use for many other tax purposes. It includes Social Security benefits, pensions, annuities, tax-exempt interest and dividends, and cash public assistance. The statute also adds back capital losses and certain deductions that reduced your adjusted gross income, then subtracts specific personal exemptions. If you’re close to a threshold, work through Schedule CB’s instructions carefully. A Social Security check or pension payment you assumed wouldn’t count almost certainly does.
Homeowners face an additional limit. The assessed value of your home cannot exceed $1,298,000 for tax year 2025. That value is the assessment before any residential exemptions but after abatements. The cap is adjusted each year using the statewide average change in single-family home assessments.
How the Credit Is Calculated
The formula is the same whether you own or rent. Take your qualifying housing costs, subtract 10% of your total income, and the remainder is your credit, capped at $2,820 for tax year 2025.
Homeowners
Your qualifying costs are the property taxes you actually paid during the year plus half of your water and sewer charges. If your total income is $50,000 and you paid $7,500 in property taxes plus $1,000 in water and sewer charges, your qualifying costs are $8,000. Ten percent of your income is $5,000, so the raw credit would be $3,000, but you’d receive $2,820 because of the cap.
Water and sewer rules trip people up. Stormwater fees and betterment charges tied to municipal water and sewer infrastructure count, as do charges from a municipal sewage treatment facility. What doesn’t count is the cost of pumping a private septic tank, because that’s a payment to a private company rather than a municipal charge. Check your annual property tax bill for line items labeled “Water,” “Sewer,” or “Utility” to see whether these charges are already bundled in.
Renters
If you rent, Massachusetts treats 25% of your annual rent as the property tax equivalent. When that amount exceeds 10% of your total income, the difference is your credit, up to the same $2,820 cap. On $18,000 of annual rent, the tax-equivalent amount is $4,500. If your total income is $40,000, 10% is $4,000, and your credit is $500.
Multi-Unit Owners and Co-op Residents
If you live in a multi-family building you own, you can only claim the share of property taxes and water and sewer charges attributable to your own unit. The same proportional split applies to the assessed value: you compare only your unit’s share against the $1,298,000 cap. A triple-decker assessed at $1.5 million puts your one-third share at $500,000, well under the limit.
Cooperative residents who pay a monthly fee covering both real estate taxes and services like nursing or medical care can only count the portion documented as real estate taxes. The Department of Revenue reviews your contract or ownership agreement to determine that breakdown.
How to File and What You’ll Need
You claim the credit on Schedule CB, attached to your Massachusetts Form 1 or Form 1-NR/PY income tax return. The filing deadline for tax year 2025 returns is April 15, 2026. You can file electronically through MassTaxConnect or mail a paper return.
Gather your records before you start. Homeowners need property tax bills showing actual payments made during the tax year, plus water and sewer bills if you’re claiming those charges. Renters need rent receipts or a signed statement from the landlord showing total rent paid, along with the landlord’s name and address for Schedule CB. Everyone needs W-2s, 1099s for pensions and Social Security, and records of any other income that falls within the credit’s broad “total income” definition, including tax-exempt interest statements, public assistance records, and capital gains or loss documentation.
Schedule CB asks for the property’s assessed value and total municipal taxes paid, so keep your assessment notice within reach. If you own a multi-unit building, calculate your proportional share before you begin.
Once processed, the credit offsets any Massachusetts income tax you owe. If the credit is larger than your tax bill, and it often is for seniors on fixed incomes, the remainder comes back as a refund by check or direct deposit.
Claiming the Credit for Prior Years
Missing a year isn’t necessarily final. Massachusetts lets you file Schedule CB within three years of the original filing deadline for that tax year, not counting extensions. For tax year 2023, with an original due date of April 15, 2024, you have until April 15, 2027 to submit the schedule and claim the credit.
The three-year window is firm. Miss it and the credit for that year is gone. If you’ve been eligible for several years without claiming, filing amended returns for the open years could be worth several thousand dollars.
Federal Tax and SSI Implications
Whether the refund is federally taxable depends on how you filed federally for the year in question. If you claimed the standard deduction, you don’t need to report the state refund as federal income. If you itemized and deducted your Massachusetts income taxes, you may need to include some or all of the refund in the following year’s federal income, using the worksheet in the Instructions for Schedule 1 of Form 1040.
If you receive Supplemental Security Income, the refund itself doesn’t count as SSI income. Federal regulations exclude tax refunds from countable income. It does, however, count as a resource once it lands in your bank account. If your countable resources exceed $2,000 for an individual or $3,000 for a couple at the start of any month, SSI stops until you spend down. A $2,820 refund deposited in January could push you over. If your resources are already close to the cap, plan to spend or reallocate the money before the first of the following month.
Annual Adjustments
Every dollar figure in this credit adjusts annually. The income limits and maximum credit track a cost-of-living index, and the property value cap tracks the statewide average change in single-family home assessments. The Department of Revenue publishes an updated Technical Information Release each fall. The figures in this article are for tax year 2025; before completing Schedule CB for a later year, check the DOR’s website for the current TIR.